During the latter
portion of 2014, Oregon officials and Hepatitis C patient advocates
debated who would be able to receive a new, highly effective yet
prohibitively expensive drug under the state’s Medicaid program.

Officials approved criteria that restricted the
drug, Sovaldi, to very sick patients, with the caveat that they’d take
up the issue again once new, perhaps more affordable drugs hit the
market.

That appears to have happened sooner than expected.
The director of the Oregon Health Authority, which oversees the state’s
Medicaid program, the Oregon Health Plan, approved new criteria this
month that permits some OHP beneficiaries with Hepatitis C to access a
new drug: Harvoni. Hepatitis C is a disease that causes inflammation of
the liver and can lead to liver failure or liver cancer.